antiquity in asserting, “no one is righteous” in 3:10.17 It is the message he faithfully presents through Romans that can free humanity from the dominion of the passions. In 8:1, Paul puts a caveat on his good news, “for those who are in Christ Jesus.” He speaks similarly in other assurances, like 6:1-4 and 12:1-3, implying that freedom from the passions can only happen in Christ.
Paul asserts that every person who is in Christ should “consider” themselves based on this new reality. While he shares the conceptual framework that thinking is determined by the virtue of the thinker, to an extent, he is more concerned with the correspondence of the believers’ station, being in Christ, and the effect that has on their ability to think, than on learning to practice these virtues. In Paul, the disposition necessary to practice the intellectual virtues is given. Those who are in Christ begin to think of themselves as being alive in him. But they don’t do this by themselves. In Romans 8 and 12, Paul describes the animating force in the minds of those who are in Christ, the Holy Spirit.
the Spirit here shows that the mind is transformed and enabled only by the Spirit to fulfill the requirements of the law. Taking on the mindset of the Spirit is the only way to
practice φρόνησις.
The Fruit of Φρόνησις
The behavior change that stems from practicing φρόνησις can be seen in other places in Paul’s letters. The fruit of the Spirit, listed in Galatians 5:22-23, and the following verses show the practical implications Paul ascribes to the work of the Holy Spirit.19 It’s worth looking at this passage as a helpful augment to what Paul writes in Romans 8:3-5. It was common in ancient philosophical writing, predominantly in studies of practical wisdom common among the Stoics, to use vice lists to describe not just the conduct of the unwise, but also their state of mind.20 Additionally, it was common for philosophers to use this same kind of fruit metaphor to describe moral transformation.21
What the Spirit does, as Paul alludes to in this list of the fruits of the Spirit and also in vs. 25, is transform Christians so that they will behave according to the Spirit, according to Christ, and ultimately, according to how God himself behaves. Ben Witherington makes the point this way in Paul’s Narrative Thought World, “The Spirit makes believers capable of understanding and properly integrating the Christ, the Christ event, and what God has freely given them in Christ.”22 Because they Spirit enables them
especially concentrated in chapter 8. See 2:29; 14:17; and 15:16-19. For the centrality of the Spirit in this passage, see Moo, Romans, 468.
19 Rosner’s study of Paul and the law is helpful in interpreting these behavioral passages with respect to the way Paul views the law. “To walk in the Spirit is thus to experience the ethical blessings of the new age of the Spirit, an age in which the dispensation of the law has passed away.” Brian S. Rosner, Paul and the Law: Keeping the Commandments of God, New Studies in Biblical Theology 31 (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2013), 126.
20 Engberg-Pedersen comments on this vice list in Engberg-Pedersen, Paul and the Stoics, 160–61; He also gives a summary of the Stoic vice list, 339-340n9. Like Martyn, he believes Paul appropriated the standard vice list according to his apocalyptic worldview, with limitations. See Craig Keener, “A Comparison of the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 with Ancient Thought on Ethics and Emotion,” in The Language and Literature of the New Testament: Essays in Honor of Stanley E. Porter’s 60th Birthday, ed. Lois Fuller Dow, Craig A. Evans, and Andrew W. Pitts (Boston: Brill, 2016), 576.
21 Keener, “The Language and Literature of the New Testament,” 578; Jewett, Romans, 422–
23.
22 Ben Witherington, Paul’s Narrative Thought World: The Tapestry of Tragedy and Triumph
to understand and empowers them to integrate their union with Christ, they begin to change. The process of producing the fruit of the Spirit, then, describes, “the life and character of God being replicated on a lesser scale in human lives.”23
The Mindset of the Spirit
Romans 8:5-8 is the clearest contrast between the mind of the Spirit and the mind of the flesh in Romans. In these verses, Paul sets the two states in direct contrast with one another to show their differences. By his description, and the continuation of the argument from the first seven chapters, it’s apparent that this contrast includes an
epistemic component.
In 8:5-8, Paul uses epistemic language to explain the work of the Spirit in the mind. It’s unsurprising that in another section on ethics, the epistemic virtues come into focus. Although not explicit here, the virtue of φρόνησις is the result of the mindset of the Spirit and the ethical implications Paul discusses in 8:12-13.
These verses present the strongest evidence for Craig Keener’s thesis in The Mind of the Spirit, that the Spirit works through and along with the human mind, not apart from it.24 The new life in Christ is one of intellectual integration. The believer, because he is in Christ is oriented differently in the world (6:11), but this orientation comes at the leading of the Spirit. Unlike other Greek discussions of the passions, for Paul, “one overcomes the character of the flesh not by addressing it on its own terms but by recognizing the greater reality of what God has done for us in Christ.”25 The activity
(Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 283.
23 Witherington, 299.
24 Put another way, Paul, “apparently experienced no conflict as a believer between life in the Spirit and an intellect directed by faith.” Keener, The Mind of the Spirit, xix–xx.
25 Keener, 259. In the introduction, Keener nods toward the implications for charismatic theology in his study of the mind. Indeed, through the book, he has an eye toward the use of the gifts, particularly the supernatural gifts like tongues and prophecy, but does not treat them directly. One of the obvious implications though is that these gifts are within, or at least consonant with, the new mind. The Spirit does not work exclusively outside the mind. One area in which this study goes further than Keener’s is by making the connection between the work of the Spirit in virtues like discernment in understanding the will of God and in interpreting the voice of God through prophecy and tongues. The discernment that
of the mind of the Spirit results from the “reality of Christ” and the “new identity in him.”26
The Mindset of the Spirit and Epistemology
The fundamental problem with traditional foundationalist or propositionalist account of Paul’s epistemology is how to account for the significant overlap in what believers and unbelievers can know. This is because while the question, what does someone know, is important, it is secondarily important to the question, how does someone know? In fact, it is only by answering this second question that the first can be answered.
The most common position among the commentators is that in Christ believers only gain a new perspective based on a new reality.27 Descriptions of this change range from the impact of new information of believers’ thinking to a new focus in their lives.
Talbert describes this change as spirit cognition, “an orientation in which God is one’s ultimate concern and one’s enabling power.”28 But this language of concern, or
perspective, slips into a minimal understanding of what this verse is saying. Both in 6:11 and 8:3-5, this explanation is too cognitive to be a complete explanation of what Paul was
Christians can practice applies in both cases. For more on this, see the following chapters on 1 Corinthians.
26 See Keener, 114-121, especially p. 121.
27 The paradigm for this position is Martyn, “Epistemology at the Turn of the Ages”; F. F.
Bruce, Romans, Tyndale New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids: IVP Academic, 2008), 141–43; “If they are in a ‘new world,’ then their behavior should follow accordingly. But although they share in God’s life through the gift of the Holy Spirit, they still inhabit mortal bodies and live within the structures of the world.” Johnson, Reading Romans: A Literary and Theological Commentary, 105; “It is not just that they are to imitate Christ (because he has died to sin, so you too); Christians are also to arm themselves with the mentality that they are dead to sin; for that is what has happened to them in the baptismal experience.”
Fitzmyer, Romans, 33:438; “Paul is simply demanding belief congruent with the truth he has explained in 6:2–10: in Christ, believers died to the sin of Adamic humanity and have new life.” Keener, Romans, 82;
“We are not commanded to become dead to sin and V 1, p 226 alive to God; these are presupposed. And it is not by reckoning these to be facts that they become facts. The force of the imperative is that we are to reckon with and appreciate the facts which already obtain by virtue of union with Christ.” John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1968), 1.225-226.
28 Charles H. Talbert, Romans, Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary (Macon, GA: Smyth &
Helwys, 2002), 204–5.
saying.29 Epistemic content is open to believers and non-believers. Information alone cannot account for the changes Paul describes. If it were, what would be the role of the Spirit?
A new perspective cannot explain the change Paul describes in those who walk by the Spirit. Paul differentiates between thinking about the things of the flesh and the things of the Spirit; Paul puts this concisely in verse 5; “οἱ γὰρ κατὰ σάρκα ὄντες τὰ τῆς σαρκὸς φρονοῦσιν, οἱ δὲ κατὰ πνεῦµα τὰ τοῦ πνεύµατος.”30 At minimum, Paul is making an observation about the content of a person’s thinking, something along the lines of, “those of the Spirit should think about spiritual things,” which is not uncommon in Paul.31 This interpretation reads φρονέω with an emphasis on the content of what is understood.
This is an uncontroversial explanation of what Paul is saying, but is it all he’s saying? Does it fit the context to only mention contents of what the believers are thinking about? To put the question differently, is Paul describing a difference in what those who walk by the Spirit think about or is he describing a different manner of thinking entirely?
To start from the premise that those who walk by the Spirit think the things of the Spirit, it’s helpful to divide the issue in two; first, what does Paul mean by “thinking,”
the word φρονέω? Second, what does it mean to think the things of the Spirit?
29 Commenting on 8:4, Thompson writes, “Unlike his contemporaries, Paul does not indicate that humankind can do the will of God, but only that the ‘just requirement of the law’ may be fulfilled in the community of believers empowered by the Spirit.” Thompson, Moral Formation According to Paul, 153.
30 Because of the participle, “ὄντες” in these phrases, some have raised the question of ontology in this passage. Is there an ontological difference between those “ὄντες” of the flesh, and those
“ὄντες” of the Spirit? This debate typically runs alongside theological preferences concerning regeneration.
Schreiner and Moo read Paul as making a statement of ontological difference between Christians and non- Christians. Cranfield and Dunn do not. Schreiner, Romans, 410–12; Moo, Romans, 486; Cranfield, The Epistle to the Romans, 2004, 1:385; Dunn, Romans, 1988, 425.
31 There are several places where Paul says something like this, for example, Phil. 4:8, “ὅσα ἐστὶν ἀληθῆ, ὅσα σεµνά... ταῦτα λογίζεσθε,” or Col. 3:2, “τὰ ἄνω φρονεῖτε, µὴ τὰ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς.” This distinction is partially captured in Dunn’s use of “takes the side of” and “way of thinking” to translate φρονέω. Dunn, Romans, 1988, 426. Moo understands this phrase as “thinking the things of the flesh/Spirit.”
Romans, 487.
What’s implied from the previous verse is that those who are “κατὰ πνεῦµα”
here are those who are walking by the Spirit, and the same with those “κατὰ σάρκα,” they walk by the flesh. In a similar way, those walk by the Spirit think by the Spirit. Some of the difficulty bound up in this passage can be seen in the different attempts to render this passage in English. The most common understanding among the commentators is to render the term as “mindset.”32 The matter of translation, though, is not as difficult as the question of meaning. In English, this is something like the difference between “thinking about something” and “how to think about something.” The difference lies in the quality and the nature of the thinking process, not just what is being thought about.
With Unveiled Faces: 2 Corinthians 3:12-18
Paul emphasizes the Spirit’s role in revelation other places in his letters, nowhere more significantly than in 2 Corinthians 3:12-18. Having been accused of using underhanded ways and emphasizing his boldness (παρρησία) and his authority, Paul contrasts the old and new covenants, showing that the new covenant, of which he has been made a minister, is even more glorious than the old. He does this, reminding the Corinthians, that he is operating out of borrowed authority, the authority of the messenger of the covenant, similar to the authority Moses had before the people of Israel when he brought the tablets down from the mountain. Whereas Moses brought down stones to display the word of God, Paul and his companions have the testimony of human hearts that have been changed.
Taking up the storyline from Exodus 34:33-35, Paul explains that they are even bolder than Moses had been.33 The Israelites could not look at his face because of the
32 BDAG lists gives a range of meaning that coincides with “mindset,” thoughtful planning, way of thinking, frame of mind, understanding, insight, and intelligence. The commentators do not typically venture outside this range. Bauer, BDAG, 1066; Moo, Romans, 468; Schreiner cautions not to read too much into this word group in any direction. Schreiner, Romans, 405–6; Dunn’s “way of thinking”
for φρόνηµα is similar Dunn, Romans, 1988, 426.
33 There are many interesting debates over the way Paul reads this story, especially considering several of the details he mentions; that the Israelites could not look at Moses face and the reason why, that do not occur either in the Hebrew or the LXX of Exodus 34. Murray J. Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand
glory he had seen, and this new covenant is even more glorious. Then Paul makes an interesting interpretive move. He explains why it was that Moses put the veil over his face in reference to the Jews’ inability to see “what was coming to an end,” presumably the Old Covenant, of which Moses himself embodies in this reading. Their minds were hardened from seeing that the Mosaic covenant was coming to a close and the glory of the covenant. To this day, he explains, this “veil” remains over the eyes of their hearts when they read the Scriptures. Unlike Paul, they do not see Jesus as the Christ in the Scriptures.34 But in Christ, this veil is removed. For Christians, the situation is
remarkably different, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”
This transformation comes from or during the process of “beholding” the glory of the Lord - seeing imperfectly but moving toward certainty.35 Κατοπτρίζω, the verb Paul uses to describe seeing a reflection appears here and in the noun form ἔσοπτρον in 1 Corinthians 13:12, and in both cases, Paul is describing a process of seeing more clearly over time.36 Again, Paul comes back to the concept of transformation as a
characterization of sanctification.37 In Romans 12:1-3 Paul characterizes transformation
Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2005), 292–93. Since the purpose here is to understand Paul’s argument, I will focus exclusively on the argument he makes in 2 Corinthians 3 to the exclusion of how he might be utilizing the narrative in Exodus.
34 There are powerful resonances here with the passages that describe Paul reasoning from the Scriptures with the Jews to demonstrate that Jesus is the Christ. See Acts 17:2f; 18:4, 19; 19:8; 20:9.
35 Michael Fishbane sees resonances of Numbers 12:8 and Ezekiel 43:3 in Paul’s use of the image of a mirror to denote prophetic seeing, culminating in the time that we too speak with God face to face. The verb form of this same image in 2 Cor. 3 could also be read with this background in mind.
“Through the Looking Glass: Reflections on Ezek 43:3, Num 12:8 and 1 Cor 13:8,” Hebrew Annual Review 10 (1986): 63–75.
36 It was common for the philosophers to use mirrors to symbolize indirect knowledge. Harris points out, though, that just because the vision is indirect does not mean it is inexact. “All ‘mirrored’
knowledge is of necessity indirect knowledge, but indirect knowledge is not necessarily imprecise or inaccurate knowledge; a ‘mirror image’ is indirect but may be perfectly clear. Significantly, there is here no ἐν αἰνίγματι (‘dimly,’ ‘with blurring’) as in 1 Cor. 13:12. The vision of God’s glory accorded Christians is indirect, for it is mediated through the gospel, but it is clear, for the Christ who is proclaimed through the gospel is the exact representation (εἰκών) of God (4:4).” Harris, The Second Epistle to the Corinthians, 315.
37 In a recent study, Kugler has argued that Paul viewed Christ as the image of God to which
in terms of the renewal of the mind to the end of discerning the will of God. Here, he relates transformation to contemplating the glory of the Lord. But what image is he referring to? This must be the image of Christ.
Interpreting Φρονέω
Having already discussed the intellectual virtue of φρόνησις, much of what Paul means here can be explained by the philosophical backdrop. However, φρόνησις and φρονέω do not necessarily have the same connotation. Looking at the way Paul uses this verb in Romans and in the broader corpus nuances our understanding of the kind of thinking he prescribes.
Φρονέω in the immediate context. In the immediate context of chapter 8, Paul is discussing the operation of the Spirit in those who are in Christ. The work of the Spirit is the clear theme of this first part of Romans 8, so “thinking the things of the Spirit”
should be read as part of the larger understanding of this work. For all the changes Paul describes in the lives of those who are in Christ, it is the Spirit that empowers and guides.
The righteous requirement of the law is fulfilled in those who walk by the Spirit (8:4).
Those who walk according to the Spirit will set their minds on the things of the Spirit (8:5). To set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace (8:6). Those who have the Spirit belong to God (8:9). In Christ, the Spirit is life because of righteousness (8:10). The Spirit will raise those in Christ from the dead (8:11). Those who walk according to the Spirit will put the deeds of the body to death and live (8:13). Those who are led by the Spirit are sons of God and cry out, “Abba, Father” (8:14-15). The Spirit bears witness to the inheritance and glorification of the children of God (8:17). These descriptions cannot be explained by new information alone, but by the action of the Spirit in the hearts of those who are in Christ that leads them to act differently. If in each of these cases, the
all believers are being conformed. This is inherent in the creation of Adam; “Jesus is the protological and cosmogonical image of God according to which Adam himself was made and toward which he was destined.” Chris Kugler, Paul and the Image of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Academic, 2020), 197.